Football rankings: Another way of ranking the international top scorers

Normally you don't see anything in this blog about individual players, because they are not my main interest in NT-football. It's about the national teams for me. But recently there was a request from a long-time reader about the ranking of international top scorers, in combination with the strength of the opponents against which they scored their goals.

Especially since Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, the ultimate professional and prolific football player, but also the world's biggest phoney when it comes to being a team player, is breaking records, this topic is apparently hot. He's the leading all-time international top scorer with 127 goals from 203 caps.

By the way, the numbers in this post are collected from the following sources and updated manually when data was lagging:

- the international all-time top scorers list from wiki;

- for each player in that list an overview with all international matches in which they played (and sometimes scored) by date, maintained until July 2023 from RSSSF;

- historic elo-ratings per date.

The idea was to get a better picture of the worth of all these goals by weighing the scored goals with the strength of the opponent at the time the match was played and the goals were scored. Because in the top scorers list players from all over the twentieth century appear, the FIFA rating (existing only since August 1993) wasn't useful. Not to mention the three major calculation adaptations in 2002, 2006 and 2018 that caused severe trend breaks in the FIFA ratings.

The obvious alternative is the elo rating which has a number of advantages:

- this rating exists as soon as a national team plays its first international match. The initial rating before the first match of a new team is a (knowledgeable) estimate but within some 30 matches the rating of the team has converged to its 'real' value. The elo calculation method for the match points to exchange between both opponents in each match produces that fast convergence.

- the calculation method has never been changed, so there are no trend breaks in the ratings. All international matches since the very first one (Scotland-England 0-0 in Glasgow on November 30th 1872) are calculated with the same formula.

- the rating of both teams in a match is immediately adapted after the match.

- the elo rating simply gives a good and fairly stable insight in strengths of all teams, compared to each other.

I've restricted the overviews to all 38 players with currently 60 NT-goals or more. For each NT-match where a top scorer scored one or more goals I've determined the elo rating of the opponent right before the match was played. Each goal scored is weighed by the elo rating of the opponent so eventually an average elo rating per scored goal can be determined. The higher this average the stronger the opponents were.

Okay, enough chit chat, let's go to the numbers.

First the habitual ranking, sorted by number of scored goals:

name	nat	goals	caps	avg gl/cap	career_span
Cristiano Ronaldo	POR	127	203	0,63	2003-
Ali Daei	IRN	108	148	0,73	1993-2006
Lionel Messi	ARG	106	178	0,60	2005-
Sunil Chhetri	IND	93	143	0,65	2005-
Mokhtar Dahari	MAS	89	142	0,63	1972-1985
Ferenc Puskas	HUN	84	89	0,94	1945-1962
Ali Mabkhout	UAE	81	111	0,73	2009-
Robert Lewandowski	POL	81	144	0,56	2008-
Godfrey Chitalu	ZAM	79	111	0,71	1968-1980
Romelu Lukaku	BEL	79	112	0,71	2010-
Neymar	BRA	79	128	0,62	2010-
Hussein Saeed	IRQ	78	137	0,57	1977-1990
Pelé	BRA	77	92	0,84	1957-1971
Vivian Woodward	ENG	75	53	1,42	1903-1914
Sandor Kocsis	HUN	75	68	1,10	1948-1956
Kunishige Kamamoto	JPN	75	76	0,99	1964-1977
Bashar Abdullah	KUW	75	134	0,56	1996-2007
Majed Abdullah	KSA	72	117	0,62	1977-1994
Kinna Phiri	MWI	71	117	0,61	1973-1981
Kiatisuk Senamuang	THA	71	134	0,53	1993-2007
Miroslav Klose	GER	71	137	0,52	2001-2014
Piyapong Pue-on	THA	70	100	0,70	1981-1997
Abdul Kadir	IDN	70	111	0,63	1967-1979
Stern John	TRI	70	115	0,61	1995-2012
Gerd Müller	FRG	68	62	1,10	1966-1974
Carlos Ruiz	GUA	68	133	0,51	1998-2016
Luis Suarez	URU	68	137	0,50	2007-
Robbie Keane	IRL	68	146	0,47	1998-2016
Hossam Hassan	EGY	68	176	0,39	1985-2006
Didier Drogba	CIV	65	105	0,62	2002-2014
Edin Dzeko	BIH	65	133	0,49	2007-
Teerasil Dangda	THA	64	126	0,51	2007-
Jassem Al-Houwaidi	KUW	63	83	0,76	1992-2003
Ronaldo	BRA	62	98	0,63	1994-2011
Ahmed Radhi	IRQ	62	121	0,51	1982-1997
Zlatan Ibrahimovic	SWE	62	122	0,51	2001-2023
Abdul Ghani Minhat	MAS	61	71	0,86	1956-1966
Harry Kane	ENG	61	87	0,70	2015-

Players in bold are still active.

Then ranked by the average opponent's elo rating per goal scored:

name	nat	goals	caps	avg elo_opp/goal
Pelé	BRA	77	92	1784,6
Neymar	BRA	79	128	1777,1
Ronaldo	BRA	62	98	1752,5
Gerd Müller	FRG	68	62	1752,4
Luis Suarez	URU	68	137	1750,4
Sandor Kocsis	HUN	75	68	1738,6
Vivian Woodward	ENG	75	53	1734,9
Lionel Messi	ARG	106	178	1714,5
Ferenc Puskas	HUN	84	89	1694,9
Miroslav Klose	GER	71	137	1660,9
Romelu Lukaku	BEL	79	112	1647,9
Harry Kane	ENG	61	87	1623,3
Cristiano Ronaldo	POR	127	203	1582,9
Zlatan Ibrahimovic	SWE	62	122	1581,3
Didier Drogba	CIV	65	105	1555,5
Robbie Keane	IRL	68	146	1552,4
Edin Dzeko	BIH	65	133	1544,4
Robert Lewandowski	POL	81	144	1506,1
Hossam Hassan	EGY	68	176	1501,6
Carlos Ruiz	GUA	68	133	1468,5
Stern John	TRI	70	115	1450,4
Ahmed Radhi	IRQ	62	121	1388,2
Godfrey Chitalu	ZAM	79	111	1376,7
Jassem Al-Houwaidi	KUW	63	83	1373,6
Abdul Kadir	IDN	70	111	1341,3
Kinna Phiri	MWI	71	117	1337,6
Ali Daei	IRN	108	148	1332,0
Majed Abdullah	KSA	72	117	1325,8
Kunishige Kamamoto	JPN	75	76	1319,8
Hussein Saeed	IRQ	78	137	1319,2
Bashar Abdullah	KUW	75	134	1310,2
Ali Mabkhout	UAE	81	111	1307,7
Mokhtar Dahari	MAS	89	142	1303,9
Abdul Ghani Minhat	MAS	61	71	1265,9
Piyapong Pue-on	THA	70	100	1178,3
Teerasil Dangda	THA	64	126	1152,1
Kiatisuk Senamuang	THA	71	134	1151,9
Sunil Chhetri	IND	93	143	1094,1

The famous Brazilian strikers Pelé and Ronaldo, together with current star Neymar, are leading this list of most 'valuable' top scorers. Golden boy Cristiano Ronaldo is way below them and -nice to see that- also quite some way below Lionel Messi. Prolific scorers Harry Kane for England and Romelu Lukaku for Belgium are sitting pretty in this list.

Not surprisingly the current (India's Sunil Chhetri, Thai Teerasil Dangda and Ali Mabkhout for the United Arab Emirates) and past Asian top scorers like Malaysian Mokhtar Dahari and Iran's Ali Daei are found in the lower echelons of this list, their opponents were and are certainly not the strongest in the world at the time of play.

You can look up your own favorite all-time NT top-scorer, of course.

About me:

Software engineer, happily unmarried and non-religious. You won't find me on Twitter or other so called social media. Dutchman, joined the blog in March 2018.

14 comments:

AnonymousOctober 28, 2023 at 10:23 PM
The average elo rating is interesting to see, but I guess in some way it also just shows that some teams play a lot more bad teams than other. So in this average Pele would look worse if he had scored an additional 20 goals against some poor teams, while in reality it should probably add a tiny bit to his accomplishments. So I think it could be even more fruitful to make recalculcated, weighted totals. So that a goal against a team with an average elo-ratings equals 1 goal, a goal against a strong nation counts 1,?? based on the nation's elorating compared to the average, and a goal against a weak nation counts 0,?? . In that way you aren't punished for scoring many goals against small teams. They just don't count as much.
EdOctober 29, 2023 at 8:51 AM
Yeah, that was always the danger. Every simple approach will trigger a more complicated one :D
But I certainly see your point and agree.

A fair approach could be to weigh each goal against the over- or understrength of the opponent as Anon suggests. I could start with calculating for each ranking the average rating of the top 100 teams and then determine three classes of teams in the ranking:
- the stronger than average teams. Let's say they have a rating of more than a standard deviation above the calculated average;
- the teams of average strength: with a rating between minus one time or plus one time the standard deviation around the average;
- the weaker than average teams: with a rating below the average minus one time the standard deviation.

Each scored goal is weighted with the following weight factors:
- goals against stronger than average teams get a weight of 2;
- goals against average teams get a weight of 1;
- goals against weaker than average teams get a weight of 0,5.

I will have to play around with the standard deviations and weight factors first a bit to research the sensitivity of the approach, but I promise I will not calculate towards a desired result :)

How does that sound ?
EdOctober 29, 2023 at 9:04 AM
And come to think of it, you can also take into account the type of match. Is it a World Cup match or a friendly ? Or is it the first goal in a match or the seventh ?
I have no information for older matches about that last aspect, but I could factor in the importance of the match, assuming a factor like the K-factor in the elo calculation.
AnonymousOctober 30, 2023 at 5:57 AM
Bonjour va t il y avoir des simulations qualification mondial 2026 zone afrique ? Merci
DanielFergusNovember 2, 2023 at 11:21 AM
Would it make sense to take into account the ELO rating of the NT of each scorer as well as merely the opponent? This could be a weighting based on comparison of each team's rating.

The reason I suggest this is, for example, Neymar playing for Brazil might reasonably expect to be more likely to score against, for random example, Switzerland, than Edin Dzeko playing for Bosnia HG against Switzerland, simply because Brazil would have a greater goals expectancy than Bosnia HG.

Yes, I think its fair to compensate that high scorers for weaker NTs generally score against weaker NTs, on the other hand Bashar Abdullah playing for KUW against KSA is likely to have less chances to score than Ronaldo playing for BRA against KSA.
GeorgeNovember 3, 2023 at 10:49 PM
Hello. Do you know UEFA futsal national team rankings starting points?
AnonymousNovember 11, 2023 at 6:21 AM
Long time lurker, first time poster here! Two things I think are worth considering in addition: you mentioned the Asian players are lower on the list, and that makes perfect sense if most goals are against lower ranked teams. However, that strongly weighs their average down if, for example, they also scored hat tricks on the rare occasions they played top tier sides. I’m not saying that necessarily happened, but if 90% of their games are against low ranks and they consistently score, well you would expect the same from Pelé if he played against those teams too, right? Maybe it’s worth balancing this out with the teams they couldn’t score against? For example, maybe Pelé failed to score in a lot of top tier clashes while Chhetri had a 109% record against top tier sides. The rank also doesn’t capture the goals per game, which is a whole other story of effectiveness (some players in the world would top this list if they scored 1 goal against Argentina in their 3-cap national career, for example). I love what you’ve started here and I’d be interested to see if it could be further fleshed out 🙂
EdNovember 11, 2023 at 4:36 PM
Hi long-time lurker, I plan to wait a few more days (probably until next week) to collect all interesting ideas and suggestions and then implement them and publish a second post about the ranking of these international top-scorers. Didn't expected it would stir the antheap this much :)
AnonymousNovember 11, 2023 at 10:01 PM
Hello Ed, Hope you're doing well.
I was very excited to read the post once I saw that you have worked out on the idea I provided in the last blog. Also, glad to see such high response in this regard. So many new criterias have been highlighted to make the list more accurate. Another factor that would be important to realise is that that the number of minutes played by a player. Hope you can dig out more ways to find better approach to this topic. Cheers !!

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Another way of ranking the international top scorers

14 comments: